UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Maternal ADHD and parenting: The moderating role of maternal emotion regulation(2017) Woods, Kelsey; Chronis-Tuscano, Andrea; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Separate literatures have examined the associations between maternal attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and parenting and maternal emotion regulation (ER) and parenting. This study used a multi-method evaluation of parenting to examine the independent and interactive effects of maternal ADHD symptoms and ER on self-reported and observed parenting among families of school-aged children. We hypothesized that maternal ADHD symptoms and ER difficulties would be positively associated with negative parenting and negatively associated with positive parenting. We also hypothesized that maternal ADHD symptoms and ER difficulties would interact to predict the strongest association with negative parenting behavior. There were significant main effects of maternal ER difficulties on self-reported negative parenting and maternal ADHD symptoms on self-reported harsh responses to children’s negative emotions. Maternal ADHD symptoms and ER were not significantly associated with positive parenting or observations of parenting.Item EXPRESSIVE SUPPRESSION IN MIDDLE CHILDHOOD: LINKS WITH NEGATIVE EMOTION, PHYSIOLOGY, AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR(2018) Gross, Jacquelyn T; Cassidy, Jude; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A commonly used strategy for regulating emotions is known as expressive suppression (ES), in which a person attempts to conceal ongoing emotion-expressive behavior. ES has been frequently studied in adults and ample evidence indicates that it is linked to a host of negative outcomes, including depression and anxiety, suicide ideation, worse relationship and social functioning, cognitive impairment, and negative health outcomes. Relatively little is known about ES in children, despite the potential for ES to have lasting consequences on development (e.g., by contributing to a negative developmental cascade in which poor emotion regulation interferes with emerging competencies). The present study used a multi-method approach to investigate the emotional, physiological, and social behavioral correlates of both state and trait ES in middle childhood, a time when patterns of emotion regulation become more stable. Children ages 9 to 11 (n=117) reported their trait ES before coming into the lab, and then were randomly assigned to suppress or not suppress while watching a sad movie scene. Skin conductance was measured during and after the movie scene, and children gave multiple reports of their subjective emotions over the duration of the visit. After the movie scene, all children participated in tasks measuring prosocial behavior and empathy for others’ distress. Results indicated that trait suppression predicted skin conductance levels during the movie scene but did not predict emotions or social behavior. Group assignment did not affect outcomes. Exploratory analyses suggested that spontaneous ES of the control group during the movie scene predicted greater subjective feelings of sadness while suppressing. Additionally, exploratory mixed-effects models with child ratings of emotion nested within individuals suggested that trait sadness ES predicted changes in subjective sadness over the duration of the visit.Item Distress and risk behavior in borderline personality disorder: Motivation and self-efficacy for emotion regulation(2014) Matusiewicz, Alexis Katherine; Lejuez, Carl W; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a persistent psychological disorder characterized by pervasive emotional difficulties, unstable relationships, identity disturbance and high rates of engagement in self-damaging risk behavior. Prominent theoretical perspectives on BPD suggest that the primary motivational basis for risk behavior is the regulation of negative emotional states. The goal of this study was to test several of the hypotheses suggested by emotion regulation models of risk behavior, using a rigorous experimental design. Specifically, we sought to demonstrate the causal effect of distress on risk behavior among individuals with and without BPD, and to examine motivational and self-regulatory mediators of: a) the relationship between emotion and engagement in risk behavior; and b) the relationship between BPD and distress-induced change in risk behavior. To this end, participants with and without BPD provided ratings of emotion, motivation for emotion regulation and risk behavior in the context of induced calm and distress, and completed a self-report measure of trait self-efficacy for emotion regulation. Results provide partial support for the study hypotheses. Only women with BPD showed an increase in risk behavior in the distress condition, and distress-induced change in risk behavior was predicted by both the intensity of emotion regulation goals and self-efficacy for emotion regulation. Findings support the perspective that risk behavior is enacted strategically in response to negative emotions and associated motivational states. For those with BPD, distress-induced risk behavior may reflect a type of emotion-regulatory resourcefulness that becomes maladaptive when used inflexibly or to the exclusion of other strategies.Item EMOTION REGULATION MEDIATES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ADHD AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS IN YOUTH(2010) Seymour, Karen E.; Chronis-Tuscano, Andrea M.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A significant body of longitudinal research suggests increased rates of mood disorders as well as depressive symptoms in youth diagnosed with attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in contrast to non-ADHD comparison youth. Furthermore, individuals with co-occurring ADHD and mood disorders experience more serious impairments and worse outcomes than those with either disorder alone. However, few studies have examined the underlying mechanisms which may better elucidate the relationship between ADHD and depression in youth. The present study examined emotion regulation as a mediator in the relationship between ADHD and depressive symptoms in youth. Moreover, effortful control was examined as a mediator in the relationship between ADHD and emotion regulation. Participants included 69 youth between the ages of 10 and 14 with (n = 37) and without (n = 32) DSM-IV ADHD. Parent and youth ratings of depressive symptoms and emotion regulation were collected, and youth completed computerized measures of effortful control. Results demonstrated significant differences between youth with and without ADHD on depressive symptoms and emotion regulation ability, but not effortful control. Furthermore, emotion regulation fully mediated the relationship between ADHD and depressive symptoms. Clinical implications and limitations are discussed.Item Performance Under Pressure: Examination of Relevant Neurobiological and Genetic Influence(2008-04-28) Goodman, Ronald N; Hatfield, Bradley D.; Neuroscience and Cognitive Science; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Satisfactory human performance demands the complex interaction of multiple factors such as arousal/motivation, emotion expression and regulation, intricate synchronization of central and peripheral motor processes, all recruited in the service of adaptive, moment to moment decision making. The segregation of these various factors aids in the understanding of their complex interactions. Recently, scientific investigation has focused on understanding the integration of these various factors. The complementary role of emotion and cognition in successful human performance is emphasized. As a viable metric of emotion regulation differences in asymmetry of human brain frontal activity have traditionally been utilized to index certain trait predispositions within the approach/withdrawal dimension of emotion/motivation. Researchers have begun to make a case for an acute or state difference in frontal asymmetry. This "Capability Model" posits the neural underpinnings of the relative difference in electrical activity between the left and right frontal lobes as a phasic/situational mechanism possibly sub-serving the integration of emotion and cognition during challenge. The current study demonstrates support for this situational/state model of frontal asymmetry. Thirty channels of EEG were collected along with, skin conductance, heart rate and acoustic startle amplitudes while subjects were engaged in two levels of a working memory task under three increasing levels of stress (final level=electric stimuli/shock). Hierarchical regression results implicate state frontal asymmetry differences as having a mediating role in the adaptive regulation of emotion during enhanced performance on an N-back working memory task but only in the high stress condition. During shock /threat of shock participants with higher state asymmetry scores showed significant attenuation of eye-blink startle magnitudes, faster reaction times and increased accuracy. This suggests an integration of emotion and cognition.